


Still Enchanted By the Light You Brought To Me

by Maeryn_skye



Series: The Sun and the Moon [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bit of Fluff, Drug Addiction, Gen, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 14:16:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3123248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maeryn_skye/pseuds/Maeryn_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Greg have a boys' night out and the conversation turns to how Greg and Sherlock first met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Enchanted By the Light You Brought To Me

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I worship whoever originated Greg calling Sherlock "Sunshine". I love it and it's definitely firmly entrenched in my head canon now. That was the starting point of this fic. This was supposed to be a quick, cute little 'John and Greg go out, Greg admits he loves Sherlock, John hooks them up' sort of thing, but this was what came out instead. It's unusually dark for me and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Not betaed or Brit-picked, so please let me know if something is glaringly wrong. Title is from U2's amazing song "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of".

"God, I needed this tonight." John stretched as much as the small booth would allow. He had reached his favorite part of the night - not yet drunk, but buzzed enough that both his mind and body were finally beginning to relax just a bit. It had been one hell of a bad week. A difficult, violent case, Sherlock being more than usually obnoxious, Lestrade being more than usually pissed off, no sleep and precious little food - yeah, John definitely needed this.

A deep,slightly inebriated chuckle came from the other side of the booth. "Thought you might. You were looking pretty knackered by the time we finished up. I figured by the time you got His Majesty home, fed and bedded down, a pint or six might be in order." 

"Ugh. Thank God by the time we got home, he was so exhausted, he barely argued with me at all." 

"Small blessings, huh?" Lestrade gave him a knowing smile.

"Amen!" John agreed as he waved the waitress over and ordered another round. Both men sat in comfortable silence for several minutes, each wrapped in their own thoughts. 

"Greg, how did you do it before? Alone, I mean. Sherlock is a handful even now clean and sober and I've got you to help me. How in the hell did you manage it by yourself when he was still using?"

"I wasn't completely alone. Mycroft helped as much as he was able. And I didn't have to live with him. I had my own place and he had his, such as it was. I was able to distance myself when I needed to. Or when he needed me to. Don't see how you've managed to live with him this long without killing him." Greg lifted his glass in a half salute and gave the doctor a warm smile. 

"Honestly - and I'll kill you quickly and quietly if you ever tell him I said this - but honestly, it's not really that bad. It's amazing ... or maybe frightening ... or both... how quickly you can get used to human remains in the fridge, acid in the sugar bowl and toxic fungi growing in the loo." John stopped and thought for a few seconds. "Jesus. I can't believe I just said that. Definitely more frightening."

Lestrade laughed softly. "Sherlock does have a way of ... what ... pushing your boundaries? Broadening your horizons? Definitely blurring the lines between black and white. He's an amazing man. And I still believe that underneath everything, he's also a good one."

John nodded, his mind going back to that night at the pool with Moriarty. "You told me that once before. I understand more now what you meant. What was he like before? When you first met him, I mean? Can you tell me about how you met?" John noticed a flash of what could only be pain cross the detective's handsome face and hastily backtracked. "No, that's fine! It's fine really. If you're not comfortable talking about it, I understand completely. I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry..."

Lestrade shook his head and waved off John's apologies. "No. No, it's not that. I don't mind telling you. You, of all people, deserve to know. It's just ... it's not pretty. And definitely not something to talk about here. Come back to mine and I'll tell you everything." John nodded and went to pay their tab while Lestrade went out and hailed a cab. 

Once the two men were settled comfortably on Greg's couch, beers in hand, John tried again. "Greg, I'm serious. You really don't have to do this is you'd rather not."

Again, Lestrade shook his head. "No. I want to tell you about it. It's something you need to know. Hell, I should have told you a long time ago but I just couldn't. I didn't want to think about it. I hate remembering what he was like back then. And even more than that, I hate the fear that maybe one day, no matter what any of us do, he'll fall back into it."

John nodded silently, then inhaled through his nose and raised his chin, bracing himself for what was to come. "Tell me," he said quietly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greg looked down at his hands and took a deep breath, then began. "The first time I ever saw him was at a crime scene, of course. Although I don't know that 'saw him' is accurate. It was 2:00 AM and I'd been there since 11:00 that morning. I was missing something. I knew I was. We all were. But I just couldn't get it. You know how it is when you're trying to think of something and the harder you try to think, the further away it slips?" 

John nodded, even though Greg wasn't looking at him. His eyes were far away, locked in on the past. 

"It was like that. God, I was so tired. All I wanted was to solve this stupid fucking case and get home. Then all of a sudden this ... ghost was standing beside me, telling me how stupid I was and to check out the sister-in-law. As soon as I heard that, everything clicked in my head. I knew the answer. He was gone before I could even turn around and find out who he was and what he was doing there. I still don't know how he got there or where he came from, but he solved the case for me in less than a minute. Then he was gone. Like smoke."

"It happened again the next week. I still didn't get a good look at him, but I saw enough to realize that he was completely strung out on some really wicked shite. I had a junkie solving my cases for me. It began to happen on a fairly regular basis. He would always disappear before I could talk to him. It was driving me crazy. *He* was driving me crazy. I was mesmerized by him. Finally, after about a month, I caught his arm before he could escape. 'If you're going to come in here and solve all my cases for me, can you at least tell me your name?' He looked at me with those eyes of his and said 'Sherlock Holmes'. Then he was gone again."

"It went on like that for another month or so. Each time, Sherlock would open up a little bit more. He was never chatty, but he would talk to me, even if it was only to tell me what an idiot I was, for a couple minutes before he disappeared again."

A wry, almost bitter smile ghosted across the detective's face. "I remember some of the guys on the drug squad used to talk about their 'pet' junkies. You know, ones they thought they could save. Ones they felt a connection with or a bond to. I never understood what they meant until I met Sherlock. I felt responsible for him. There was just something about him that made me believe he was different, that he really could be saved." Greg signed and shook his head. "I don't know how to explain it. Even though I barely knew him, barely knew anything about him, I felt like he was mine. My responsibility. Mine to protect. Of course I never said anything like that to him."

John looked over at the other man and smiled. "Yeah, don't imagine that would have gone over very well."

Lestrade rubbed his hands over his face then downed the rest of his beer. The hurt look John had noticed before was back. "Jesus God, I don't wanna go back there." 

John reached over and laid his hand on his friend's arm. "It's ok, Greg. You don't have to. Like I said, I understand completely."

"No. You need to hear it. And honestly, I need to talk about it. I need to get it out."

He took a deep breath and dove back into his story. "It was about three, maybe three and a half months after I met Sherlock that I got a call late one night. It was the hospital. Sherlock had been admitted as a John Doe, but they found my card in his wallet so they called me." 

A look of confusion passed over John's face. "Why you? Why not Mycroft? Didn't he have..." 

"Yeah, he had Mycroft's card too, but they didn't know who he was and they decided that a police contact would be a better idea, especially given the circumstances."

"Circumstances?" John felt sick to his stomach, dreading to hear what had happened but at the same time knowing that it was important that he hear it through to the end. 

Greg saw the look on John's face and nodded. "Yeah, this is where it gets ugly. And I promise you whatever you're imagining, it was worse."

"Oh God," John sighed. "I don't know if I can ... No. Finish it."

"I've still never gotten the whole story out of Sherlock. I'm not even sure how much he remembers. From what I can figure out, his dealer thought that Sherlock was getting a little too cozy with the police. Me. After the deal was done, he sent three thugs after Sherlock and they beat the hell out of him. Broken arm and ankle, concussion, black eye and they ..." 

Greg stopped and took a deep breath, eyes squeezed shut and fists clenched. John was sure he knew what was coming next and knew that he didn't want to hear it at least as much as Greg didn't want to say it.

"They raped him, John. Those god damn, piece of shite bastards raped him and left him laying in a fucking alley like a piece of rubbish."

John sat perfectly still, eyes closed tight, struggling against the waves of nausea that were threatening to overwhelm him. Greg had the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes, trying, and failing, to stop the tears he could feel forming. 

In a voice barely above a whisper, Lestrade went on. "I went to work in the morning and stayed at the hospital with him every night. That was when I met Mycroft. Sherlock was released after four days and Mycroft and I decided it would be better if he came home and stayed with me. I had a couple weeks of vacation time coming up, so I used it. God, John, it was horrible. He was hurting, physically and mentally. Fighting through withdrawal as well as trying to heal. I've never seen a human being as broken as Sherlock was. It just ripped my heart out. I wanted to track those bastards down and kill every one of them as slowly and painfully as possible. He didn't speak at all for the first few days. It was all I could do to get him to eat. He didn't care whether he lived or died. I was the one fighting for his life and I didn't even know him. All I knew was that I couldn't let him give up and die."

"The men that attacked him ..."

"Mycroft came to me a few nights after I brought Sherlock home. He told me that they had been taken care of. I asked him what he meant. His exact words were 'I assure you, Detective Inspector, that these men will no longer present a problem. I have the means to deal with situations like this and you may rest assured that the solution was both extremely painful and completely lethal.'"

John nodded and a muttered "good" escaped from his clenched teeth.

"I was so angry with him at first. Angry for doing what I wanted so badly to do, angry that he hadn't let me be involved in it at all. God, I was still angry that it had even happened in the first place. Looking back on it now, I probably had a little bit of a breakdown myself. Mycroft took it much better than I would have given him credit for. He let me rant for a few minutes and then explained that he needed me where I was. But even more than that, that Sherlock needed me where I was. He couldn't risk my position at the Yard by letting me go on the vigilante rampage that I wanted so badly."

John looked at Greg with understanding in his eyes. "I don't blame you. I would have felt the same way. But..." he frowned slightly, trying to make sure he knew what he wanted to say. "...as long as you were on the force, Sherlock would have access to cases, right? Is that what he meant?"

Greg nodded. "I learned a lot about Sherlock that night. Mycroft talked while his brother slept. He explained to me that Sherlock only used drugs to calm the storm in his mind. If he had cases -puzzles, he called them - he would stay clean. For some reason, Sherlock had chosen me to help him. He trusted me. Mycroft didn't know why. I doubt even Sherlock could say why, but for some reason, he felt like I was safe. And the rest is history, as they say."

John looked over at the man sitting across from him. Greg's handsome face was tired now, dark eyes bloodshot and still sad. "You saved his life, Greg. You put him back together."

Greg shook his head. "No, he put himself back together. I gave him the glue, but he was the one that put all the pieces back in place. It was an amazing thing to watch. Have you ever wondered why I sometimes call him 'Sunshine'?"

"I have actually. Not sure that would be the first thing that came to my mind when thinking of a nickname for Sherlock Holmes."

"Every day he seemed to get just a little bit better. Of course, he would sometimes sink back down a little, but never as bad as before. Like I said, it was an amazing thing to watch. Then one night I came home from work. When I opened the door, I couldn't believe it. The flat was spotless and there was the smell of real food coming from the kitchen. I walked in and there was Sherlock, showered and dressed - God, that man cleans up better than anyone I've ever seen -" John nodded in fervent agreement. "Anyway, he was standing at the stove in clothes that probably cost more than I make in a year cooking dinner for me like it was the most natural thing in the world."

Lestrade's expressive eyes lit up, all trace of sadness gone now. "It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I don't just mean physically, although he did look gorgeous. You know what it's like when it's been raining for days and then all of a sudden the clouds scatter and the sun shines out brilliantly, blindingly bright? That's what it was like to see him finally healed, mind and body. He just glowed."

John smiled again, glad to see the sadness gone from his friend's face. "So, Sunshine?"

With a sheepish grin, Greg nodded. "I know it sounds silly, but I can't help it. That's how I always see him in my mind. My Sunshine."


End file.
